Monday, November 30, 2015

I've been blogging about the hostility to the rights of the presumptively innocent accused of sexual assault--especially college men--for a long time. When I started, there were essentially no other outlets doing this on a regular basis, and we received notes from wrongly accused young men telling us that our blog was influential in their decisions not to take their own lives. That didn't stop some of this blog's many detractors from calling for us to be brutally raped--you know, to teach us a lesson and all. Now, there are a lot of people writing about the issue, including some prominent law professors, so to the extent this blog was ever necessary (our detractors say it wasn't), it's less so now. Some health issues have caused me to rethink the time I devote to this endeavor, and this will be COTWA's last post, at least for awhile.

This is the way public policy is made. A committed and well-financed lobby almost always prevails over the will of the people on issues that are not among the general public's chief concerns. For example, a poll shows that over 90 percent of likely voters believe that law enforcement, not colleges and universities, should be responsible for investigating and prosecuting allegations of sexual assault on campus--the proposed Safe Campus Act would make that general consensus the law. The problem is that the only people who are very interested in this issue--a well-funded, loose coalition aptly called the sexual grievance industry--feels strongly that the Safe Campus Act should be defeated. The sexual grievance industry almost surely will get its way, as it always does.

The unvarnished truth is that the profiteers of the sexual grievance industry dominate the public discourse on the issue of college sexual assault and dictate public policy about it. These folks have no compunction about making up statistics to "prove" an imaginary college rape epidemic. The only people who bother doing "research" into the issue have a vested financial or professional interest in fomenting a college rape crisis. When one of their own happens to stray from the preferred narrative, he becomes a pariah--at least according to people whose own studies prove to be wholly invalid. The sexual grievance industry doesn't want to end the "epidemic." Its constituents just want to keep their jobs. And those of us who know they're wrong keep fighting the same battles, keep saying the same things, keep holding out hopes that always fade. We've not figured out a way to defeat an enemy supported by a massive lobby that's extremely well-funded by tax and tuition dollars.

The sexual grievance industry keeps taking away due process rights to solve the rape "epidemic" but--mirabile dictu!--none of the "solutions" ever work. When it becomes obvious that the "solutions" are wholly ineffective, the rights that were taken away are never restored--the sexual grievance industry just looks for new "solutions" that are always more onerous than the last ones. If we were really waging a war on rape, we'd fire every ineffective general who keeps coming up with cockamamie "solutions" that don't work. But since it's a made-up war against a made-up enemy, the solutions don't need to work and, in fact, can't work.

The woman likely to be our next president thinks every rape accuser deserves to be believed, which requires us to disbelieve the the men they accuse. A United States senator has no hesitation labeling a presumptively innocent man a "rapist" based on an accusation. Amanda Childress, Sexual Assault Awareness Program coordinator at Dartmouth College, asked: "Why could we not expel a student based on an allegation?" Even the gender zealots know these attitudes are not "fair," but "that's how . . . it has to be." Keeping an open mind about a rape claim is "rape apology." Calling for due process in college rape proceedings is "misogyny,""rape culture" and "victim blaming."Citing evidence to refute the made-up rape epidemic is also "misogyny." The sexual grievance industry has everyone believing that it's proper to assume guilt in cases where the facts are not known based on other, wholly unrelated cases. The overarching assumption is that rape is rampant and that women don't lie about rape, and neither assumption is true. The one-in-five stat is wrong (see here and here), and false rape claims are more common than claims that can be definitively classified as rape. Feminist Brett Sokolow, the undisputed leader of the campus sexual grievance industry who has done more to shape colleges' sexual misconduct policies than anyone in America, last year wrote that he sees "case-after-case" where "sincere victims [sic] . . . believe something has happened to them" even though "overwhelming proof" shows it did not. Mr. Sokolow suggested mental health issues may play an important factor in these wrongful accusations. Researchers from the sexual grievance industry treat as valid every unchallenged assertion of sexual assault on college rape surveys, even though when the evidence as to specific claims is actually examined, more than half of such claims can't be classified as valid or invalid.

The lies have disastrous consequences. They foment rape hysteria, which leads otherwise decent people to think witch hunts are acceptable. In this climate, even people who acknowledge that some men are wrongly accused think its proper to sacrifice innocent men as collateral damage to fight the phony war on rape. A U.S. congressman said he believed it is better to punish the innocent than to allow the guilty to go free (he quickly retracted that statement). An overwhelming majority of college women think it's better that innocent young men be punished for offenses they didn't commit than to allow a guilty man to go free. Student editors "would rather see someone falsely accused than see someone avoid coming forward." Colleges are likened to ISIS--which beheads, crucifies, systematically rapes, and burns people alive--because of the made-up rape epidemic. Gender zealots wage the war on sexual assault using the memes of the hangman in the Old South--due process isn’t merely deemed to be unnecessary to the fair administration of justice on campus, due process is deemed to be a hindrance to the fair administration of justice. Down the rabbit hole we tumble.

Even one sexual assault in college is too many. Sexual assault is a thorny issue that should not be ignored even though it is not an epidemic. We need to educate our young people about consent (amazingly, almost half of all college women think a nod in agreement does not constitute consent) and about the "regret asymmetry" that separates the genders.

Sexual assault should not be dealt with by fomenting a public outcry based on hysteria and lies. Innocence Project guru Mark A Godsey has warned that "the risk of wrongful conviction is the highest when there’s public outcry. Most of the exonerations and wrongful convictions have occurred in rape cases." These are not easy issues, and they require a very delicate balance--it's the balance that is missing from the public discourse. Every civilized society must strive to eradicate heinous criminality by punishing offenders, but it also must insure that the innocent aren't punished with them. The latter concern typically is absent from the public discourse. We have attempted here, in some small way, to inject that concern into the public discourse. Now it's up to you carry the message.

In case you missed it, "A Voice for Male Students" has had a name change--it's now "Boys and Men in Education." See why here. This site provides an invaluable service, and we link to its lawsuits database in our sidebar.

A New York Magazine article agrees that Dr. David Lisak has been peddling “questionable research” that “leads people astray” by claiming that the vast majority of college rapes are committed by serial predators.

I'm all for debunking Dr. Lisak, but after concluding that colleges are not overrun with serial rapists, the New York Magazine article reaches a conclusion that is wholly unwarranted and that promises to do more harm to the community of the wrongly accused than anything Dr. Lisak ever dreamed up. It states the following: ". . . it appears that for whatever reason — and this is where further research is so crucial — many men in college are capable of committing rape in a 'limited' (for lack of a less terrible term) manner."

Sigh. Do you see where this is leading? (1) The writer of the New York Magazine article suggests that the population of college rapists is much wider than the one Lisak claimed, and (2) the writer also seems to assume that the made-up college rape epidemic is a reality. Now, instead of having a handful of rapists committing all those rapes (a la Dr. Lisak), rape is committed by many--a large number--of college men. You can be certain that the sexual grievance industry is already at work plotting its approach in a post-Lisak world--they now have license to demonize college "men" as a class (as if they didn't do that already) since, apparently, the rape gene is spread among a large number of them.

This foolishness plays directly into the hands of the radical feminist meme that rape is normalized. Jessica Valenti, for one, never bought the idea that rapists are "sociopaths"--they are "normal guys," she wrote, and "[r]ape is part of our culture; it's normalized to the point where men who are otherwise decent guys will rape and not even think that it's wrong."

Monday, November 23, 2015

“The Hunting Ground” is a shockingly biased exercise in extremist propaganda intent on further chipping away the rights of presumptively innocent college men. It is filled with purported first-hand, and very dramatic, accounts of sexual assaults—classic “he said-she said” claims—except the filmmakers didn’t bother to acknowledge even the possibility that there might be more than one side to any of the stories they presented. None of the women’s stories—none of them—were challenged with competing evidence that might cast even the slightest doubt on them. The overall effect is akin to a 1970s radical feminist rant that insists women must always be believed solely because they cried “rape.” Director Kirby Dick sets out to create the impression that colleges are complicit in the campus rape “epidemic” merely because they do not automatically believe accusers and expel the men accused.

That the film is the product of an extremist, indeed radical, feminist philosophy is evidenced by the cast of characters it features. Many of the talking heads presented are well-known to regular readers of this blog. Dr. David Lisak declares that the problem of sexual assault on campus is “enormous” and his grand thesis that campus rape is primarily the product of serial rapists is given center stage even though that theory has been thoroughly undermined. (Linda M. LeFauve has a magnificent new article examining Lisak's flawed research.) Prof. Caroline Heldman makes a few appearances. Readers will recall her comment about the spate of lawsuits filed by college men who claim their schools denied them due process in connection with sexual assault claims: "These lawsuits are an incredible display of entitlement, the same entitlement that drove them to rape." (A court in her state recently demonstrated the bias and folly in Heldman's assessment.) Kimberly Theidon pops up. Readers will recall that she was featured here for trivializing the victimization of the wrongly accused. Diane Rosenfeld pops up. I assume this is the same Harvard lecturer who objected to the snow penis constructed by Harvard's crew team. The public space, she said, "should be free from menacing reminders of women’s sexual vulnerability.” According to the Crimson: "She said the snow penis follows a long line of public phallic symbols, including the Washington Monument and missiles. 'Women do not need to be reminded of the power of the symbol of the male genitalia,' Rosenfeld said. 'My guess is that they are constantly reminded of it in daily messages.'” Caitlin Flanagan pops up. Readers will recall that when a 20-year-old Ohio University male student was physically beaten after engaging in a public sex act with a 20-year-old female student that was almost certainly not rape, Flanagan applauded the vigilante "justice" inflicted on him--he "got what was coming to him: By committing his act in public, he exposed himself to the swift judgment of men, and his ass-kicking probably won’t be the half of his problems." We also reported that she wants to shutter all frat houses: "They are built of the same Jeffersonian architecture as the rest of the campus. At once august and moldering, they seemed sinister, to stand for male power at its most malevolent and institutionally condoned." (No, I didn't make up that quote.) Alexandra Brodsky pops up. Readers will recall that she took issue with those who suggest campus kangaroo sex tribunals can't provide justice in "he said-she said" sex cases: ". . . for some . . . , this devotion to the criminal law response suggests a subtle misogyny that many focusing on this issue have internalized." Senator Kirsten Gillibrand pops up. Readers will recall that she invited mattress toting Columbia student Emma Sulkowicz (who also makes a cameo) to be her guest at the State of the Union and actually called the presumptively innocent man Sulkowicz accused a "rapist."

I probably missed some important characters--it was difficult to pay close attention. But with a cast of extremist "experts" like that, is there any question that this was not a fair and balanced approach to a thorny problem? One glaring omission from the "documentary": feminist Brett Sokolow, the undisputed leader of the campus sexual grievance industry who has done more to shape colleges' sexual misconduct policies than anyone in America. Sokolow last year wrote that he sees "case-after-case" where "sincere victims [sic] . . . believe something has happened to them" even though "overwhelming proof" shows it did not. Mr. Sokolow suggested mental health issues may play an important factor in these wrongful accusations. Sokolow is more prominent in the college rape movement than anyone featured--I suppose Sokolow was omitted because his view would not fit the preferred narrative.

A few quick observations: ●The film calls college sexual assault an “epidemic” and an “enormous” problem when it is neither. ●With a straight face, a professor says that college is not a safe place for women, which is the epitome of hysteria. ●The film cites statistics that treat every allegation of rape as a proven rape, ignoring the fact that when even reported claims are subjected to competing claims of innocence, it is impossible to tell what happened in the majority of cases. ●The film assumes that there are no more false rape claims than those claims definitively determined to be false—all the rest (including both definitively proven rape claims and the far more common uncertain claims which make up the majority of rape claims) are assumed to be actual rapes. ●College women are told they should be worried about “the people [code word for “men”] that you do know”—change the word “people” in that sentence to “Muslims” and watch this film’s fan base have a conniption. ●College administrators, the film tells us, are “overly concerned” about false reporting when, in fact, they are not at all concerned about it and are happy to find guilt even when there is not clear and convincing evidence to support the accusation. ●The infamous Koss report, which started the college rape-is-rampant hysteria, is cited with approval. ●The film also treats as sympathetic the vigilantes at Brown who branded presumptively innocent men rapists by scribbling their names on college bathroom walls, oblivious to the fact that such misconduct is animated by a chilling hostility to due process. ●The sad case of Elizabeth Seeberg was featured in a way that made viewers assume she was sexually assaulted. In fact, it is not clear whether a sexual battery played a role in Seeberg taking her own life. ●The film cited the fact that a lot of schools reported no sexual assaults in 2012--not as something to be applauded or as evidence that some schools are doing an effective job combating sexual violence, but rather to "prove" the made-up college rape epidemic. ●Jameis Winston's attorney threatened to sue CNN if it aired the film. Let's see if he follows up.

When the filmmakers finally got around to presenting the “other side” of the story, they trotted out a hapless young man who looks to be of college age and who asks rhetorically whether a man should be considered a rapist just because a woman said “no” and they had sex. The implication is that young men don’t understand “no.” (The filmmakers should have asked whether women understand what consent means—ironically, one of the studies used to support the “college rape is rampant” claim is the one where almost half of all college women think that when a woman gives a guy a "nod in agreement," that isn't enough for consent.)

Sexual assault on campus is a very complicated, indeed thorny, issue that should not be tackled by fomenting a public outcry as this film tries to do. Innocence Project guru Mark A Godsey has warned that "the risk of wrongful conviction is the highest when there’s public outcry. Most of the exonerations and wrongful convictions have occurred in rape cases." What an interesting film “The Hunting Ground” might have been if it had bothered to present both sides of the story--but that would not have generated the mindless, angry outcry the film is hoping for.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

It is as predictable as it is disgusting. When people of goodwill point out facts that prove presumptively innocent college men accused of sexual assault are being treated unfairly, the profiteers of the sexual grievance industry have a ready-made answer for them: they accuse them of hating women.

An atrocity masquerading as a documentary known as "The Hunting Ground" will air on CNN this Sunday, November 22. Chilling emails have surfaced that prove the producers of the "The Hunting Ground" decided from the outset they were going to take the side of accusers. This purported documentary that supposedly shines a light on "he said-she said" sexual encounters doesn't give a damn about the "he said" side of the story--the accused young men are guilty by reason of penis. Whatever "The Hunting Ground" might be, it is not a documentary.

The filmmakers were challenged by some of the most respected legal scholars in America, and the filmmakers' response is among the most morally grotesque things this blog has ever reported.

How did the "documentary" filmmakers respond? "In statements sent to [The Hollywood Reporter], filmmakers Dick and Ziering said the professors’ reference to 'the "inebriated" state of the women who are portrayed in the film is classic victim blaming and is exactly the kind of misogynistic, punitive and shaming attitude that helps perpetuate sexual assault on college campuses.'"

Read it again. It was the film that opened the door to the issue of the women's inebriation by creating the impression that Mr. Winston drugged the women. The Harvard law professors merely pointed out that the actual evidence did not support this impression, but the filmmakers responded as if the professors invented the inebriation issue to make the accusers look like stereotypical "sluts." This takes "spin" to a new, diabolical low. Instead of dealing with silly things like facts, instead of refuting the professors' claims, the filmmakers were content to demonize the professors and resort to the worst kind of name-calling. (Emily Yoffe has written extensively about the Winston case here.)

We are stranded in an age where citing the evidence is misogyny; where name-calling has replaced civil discourse; where we can't just disagree, we must reduce our opponents to vile caricature; where keeping an open mind about a rape claim is "rape apology"; where calling for due process for men accused of rape is "rape culture" and "victim blaming"; and where no assertion is too outrageous, too untrue, or too hateful for the people whose livelihoods depend on manufacturing college rape hysteria. See, e.g.,here and here. Gender zealots wage the war on sexual assault using the memes of the hangman in the Old South--due process isn’t merely unnecessary to the fair administration of justice on campus, due process is a hindrance to the fair administration of justice. Down the rabbit hole we tumble.

CNN and the filmmakers behind "The Hunting Ground" learned nothing from the Rolling Stone debacle. I am waiting for both to get their just deserts.

EDIT: We have this additional mind-numbing fact: "A crew member from "The Hunting Ground," a one-sided film about campus sexual assault, has been editing Wikipedia articles to make facts conform with the inaccurate representations in the film." Read about it here.

Someone please send this link to the sexual grievance industry profiteers who made the propaganda film "The Hunting Ground"--the Hofstra case was thereal "Hunting Ground."Feminist Brett Sokolow, the undisputed leader of the campus sexual grievance industry who has done more to shape colleges' sexual misconduct policies than anyone in America, last year wrote that he sees "case-after-case" where "sincere victims [sic] . . . believe something has happened to them" even though "overwhelming proof" shows it did not. Mr. Sokolow suggested mental health issues may play an important factor in these false accusations. Do the profiteers include that quote in their little film?

Monday, November 16, 2015

Last week, a feminist compared the made-up college rape epidemic to ISIS--and, no, I'm not making that up. She wrote: "ISIS’ treatment of Yazidi women as sexual slaves may seem far removed from fraternity or athletic team members’ treatment of women as sexual objects for conquest, however the results are distressingly similar." And: "While ISIS endorses sexual assault, American college administrations similarly facilitate and perpetuate the rape of women on campuses."

ISIS's most dramatic act of inhumanity occurred this past weekend when it killed scores of innocents in Paris and paralyzed a city with fear.

In contrast, the most widely publicized example of "rape culture" in recent years was Rolling Stone's gang rape story, with all its attendant hysteria. That "rape" turned out to be a complete fabrication.

When given the chance, ISIS beheads innocents, crucifies them, sets them on fire, beats them, systematically gang rapes them, and engages in every form of agonizing torture it can think of.

When it comes to the made-up college rape "epidemic," no assertion is too false, too outrageous, too hysterical, too hateful, or too flat-out stupid for the sexual grievance industry and its media enablers. With a straight face, they happily mouth lines that seem lifted from theatre of the absurd. Comparing college rape to the tactics of ISIS is not just preposterous, it sends the already dismal public discourse on college sexual assault plummeting to a new, hateful low.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

I get the distinct impression The Huffington Post hates the proposed Safe Campus Act, don't you? You know, too much of that fairness crap for the presumptively innocent.

A writer for that outlet named Tyler Kingkade wrote this:

. . . the Safe Campus Act . . . would restrict colleges from punishing students for sexual assault unless the police are also involved. Other illegal behaviors -- such as theft or physical assault -- would not be held to this requirement.

But then later in the same article, Mr. Kingkade wrote this:

Along with the requirement to notify police before schools can investigate sexual assaults, the bill would allow schools to use whatever standard of evidence they choose in campus adjudications. Currently, when a college holds a hearing to determine if a student accused of sexual assault violated the code of conduct, it's obligated by the U.S. Department of Education to use the "preponderance of evidence" standard. Under this standard, an adjudicator must be 51 percent or more certain the accused is guilty, making it more likely that the student will be found in violation.

Hmm. There's something wrong here . . . . Mr. Kingkade seemed eager to point out a double standard in the first item--but when he wrote the second item, he forgot to mention a far more egregious double standard. Let me do it for you, Mr. Kingkade, using your own words: "Other illegal behaviors -- such as theft or physical assault -- are not held to this [preponderance of the evidence] requirement."

There. Fixed it for you, Mr. Kingkade. I am sure you want to be accurate when reporting on this issue, right?

The fact is, the sexual grievance industry and its extremist media enablers have insisted that alleged sexual assault on campus should be held to entirely different--and far more stringent--legal standards than any other offense, as this blog has reported in probably hundreds of posts over the years. It's perfectly okay with them when they this works to the disadvantage of the presumptively innocent.

It is true that the Safe Campus Act does not compel victims of other serious criminality to report to police before a college will investigate those offenses internally--but that's because serious criminality except for rape is always reported to police, and we don't need a law to force people to do what they already do. But the sexual grievance industry and its extremist media enablers have encouraged women not to report rape to police by repeatedly telling them that they can't justice in the justice system. That's why we need to include the requirement in the Safe Campus Act.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

The Safe Campus Act of 2015 sponsored by Republican Reps. Matt Salmon of Arizona and Pete Sessions and Kay Granger of Texas is a significant bill because it provides rights for both the accuser and the accused. The bill provides, among other things that if an accuser "provides a notification to the institution [that she does not want the matter investigated by law enforcement], the institution may not initiate or otherwise carry out any institutional disciplinary proceeding with respect to the allegation, including imposing interim measures . . . ." Ashe Schow has provided the best and most cogent coverage of this proposed law outside of this blog.

There are innumerable invalid arguments in opposition to the proposed act. Here are my top three:

(1) The proposed law creates a double-standard that requires women to report only for sexual assault but not for other alleged offenses.

The irony must be lost on the people making this argument: they are the ones who insisted that alleged sexual assault on campus should be held to entirely different legal standards than any other offense--standards that make it much easier to find young men responsible for sexual assault, as this blog has reported in probably hundreds of posts over the years. This double-standard was most famously stated in the unjust, anti-male "Dear Colleague" letter.

The Safe Campus Act is necessary in order to correct the terrible injustices this double standard has imposed on colleges across the country. If, in fact, sexual assault had been treated the same as other offenses, there likely would be no necessity for this law.

(2) The Safe Campus Act is inconsistent with Title IX.

First, it's not. Everyone knows that Title IX was not designed to allow colleges to construct anti-male kangaroo courts to hold show trials for alleged sex offenses, but that's how it's been applied.

Second, Title IX is not the Constitution, it is a federal law the same as the Safe Campus Act would be. Title IX poses no legal impediment to the enactment of this law. Unfortunately, the anti-due process forces opposing the Safe Campus Act seem to think that Title IX trumps even the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which is legally absurd.

(3) Sexual assault accusers may not want police involvement because women "can't get justice" by reporting to the police.

This argument is among the sacred tenets of the sexual grievance industry, and it is both utterly preposterous and constructed on a faulty premise.

First, alleged sexual assault needs to be reported to the police in order that the accused not be subjected to a life-altering punishment and is not branded a "rapist" for life without due process. In addition, such alleged offenses need to be reported to police for the sake of women both on and off campus. Expelling a "rapist" and unleashing him on society at large does nothing to protect women off-campus, but the sexual grievance industry seems to have no concern for them.

Senator Claire McCaskill opposes the Safe Campus Act because, she said, young women robbed at gunpoint do not need to involve police to get their assailants expelled whereas, under this Safe Campus Act, police would need to be involved. This, of course, is the worst kind of straw man. Armed robbery is always reported to the police, and no law is needed to insure that it is. The Safe Campus Act would merely do what activists have long advocated but apparently never really meant: ensure that colleges treat sexual assault as a serious crime.

On reporting: More victims may not be reporting their rapes, but the reasoning has changed over the past few decades. 'A generation ago,' the reasons were things like, 'fear of not being believed; fear of being interrogated about and blamed for their own behavior, and what they were wearing. In short, they feared that they would be the one on trial.' Today, 'the perception of many victims has evolved.' Now they don't report for these reasons: 'they don't want their loved ones to know what happened; they're ashamed themselves; they just want to put it all behind them.' Today, 'fear and shame of how the police wil [sic] treat them' has moved down on the list of reasons victims provide for not officially reporting the crime.

It is mind-boggling that the sexual grievance industry and its extremist media enablers are happy to deprive young men of critical rights in order to allow young women to cry "rape" in a way that would keep mommy and daddy from learning their daughters drink and are sexually active.

The reason we should not assume she was being "funny" was because (1) her demented statement is so very similar to a lot of idiocy spewed by the feminist left, and (2) it wasn't, you know, funny. See it here.

Monday, November 9, 2015

College Humor's "What If Bears Killed One In Five People?" propaganda video is unfunny on a scale that even Adam Sandler couldn't match. It is designed to promote the lie that 1 in 5 college women in the U.S will be sexually assaulted before they leave college. Apparently, the Obama White House teamed up with College Humor to produce this monstrosity. See here.

In the video, a group of five men are watching television when one of them discovers a bear in the kitchen. Four of the men are utterly terrified by the bear while the fifth man tries to console them that it's okay--bears eat only one-in-five people. At the end of the video, these words flash on the screen: "You wouldn't put up with that"--which is correct. Then: "So don't put up with this. 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted by the time they leave college."

It's not funny, of course, because satire only works when the vices and abuses held up to ridicule are-- you know--real things. No one who's not drunk on gender politics believes the one-in-five stat. Not even the Obama Department of Justice believes it See also here. here and here.

Beyond not being funny, the video actually underscores that the one-in-five stat is a lie. Obviously, if that stat were true, everyone would be reacting like the four terrified men in the video. The fact that no one is reacting like those men aside from extremist loons is a cringe-worthy reminder that there is no college rape epidemic.

It must be disconcerting to make a satirical video that actually supports the position contrary to the one you set out to make.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

We have long maintained that, if put to a popular vote, pretty much everything this blog advocates would be the law in America. We are not the extremists; what we advocate is common sense and fair, and it's supported by a lot of law professors with no dog in the hunt.

For example, did you know that "[a]n overwhelming percentage of likely voters believe that law enforcement agencies and prosecutors should take the lead role in investigating and adjudicating allegations of sexual assault on college campuses . . . ." See here. This is the premise of the proposed Safe Campus Act under consideration in Congress.

It's "controversial" only because paid lobbyists of the sexual grievance industry and their sympathetic extremist media enablers have decided the Safe Campus Act must be killed, that's why. Unfortunately, those groups dominate the public discourse when it comes to all things related to gender, so the Safe Campus Act faces an uphill battle, at least until a Republican is elected president.

Our elected officials have an opportunity to show us whether they work for us or for paid lobbyists that represent well-funded groups with agendas that don't give a damn about your son's rights. I am not optimistic they will do the right thing.

Saturday, November 7, 2015

The sexual grievance industry is pushing for laws that require colleges to note on a transcript if a student was suspended or dismissed for sexual assault. The goal is to prevent the student from getting into another college (note there is no concern that the student will sexually assault non-college women). The federal government is also exploring the requirement. This law disproportionately affects young white males since they make up the group that is most often subject to college rape "justice," and the goal is to punish men, not to protect women--classic feminist "get-evenism."

The sexual grievance industry has always insisted that the law does not require colleges to afford students accused of sexual assault even minimal due process rights because the impact on the men accused supposedly is limited--the most that can happen to them is expulsion. That assertion, of course, is dishonest.

The reason the transcript notations are unjust is obvious: colleges are incapable of doing justice when it comes to sex offenses. “These requirements operate under the premise that findings of facts by institutions are reliable when we know that they are not,” said Nico Perrino, a FIRE spokesman. By requiring schools to make notations of transcripts, the government is, effectively, depriving men of their right to pursue an education without affording them even the most rudimentary due process.

In contrast, President Obama has directed federal agencies to “ban the box”—the questions on government job applications that ask prospective employees about their criminal history, often serving as an obstacle to employment for the formerly incarcerated--disproportionately minority men.

We support that effort, but beware the PC double-standard: if a man was convicted of rape after a full, fair trial before a jury of his peers where he was afforded the entire panoply of due process rights available under the Constitution and all the rights of appeal and habeas corpus, an employer subject to the President's mandate can't ask him to reveal that fact. That same employer, however, is permitted to look at college transcripts and see if a job applicant was expelled for sexual assault--even though he was not afforded even the most rudimentary rights, and there is a very good chance the school got it wrong. The employer would conclude that the latter man is a rapist but not the former.

It's all about group identity politics, and it is grossly unjust. College men ought to insist on the equivalent of "ban the box" when it comes to references to alleged sexual assault on their transcripts.

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

It turns out our elected officials have had enough of the witch hunts over alleged sex offenses at colleges and universities and that they do care about "due process" after all--but only when a vaunted institution of higher learning in their state is unfairly maligned by the Department of Education. In contrast, those elected officials seem to be just fine when the vaunted institutions of higher learning are the ones carrying out the witch hunts against college men.

Following a federal investigation into purported sexual violence at the University of Virginia, Virginia's Democratic governor and senators strongly objected to the Department of Education's findings. The governor said he feared that U-Va. was being denied “very basic requirements of due process.” He wrote: "Due process requires timely notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard by an impartial tribunal." He also expressed concern about what he viewed as an “adversarial” posture from the investigative agency. Virginia's two senators expressed support for the governor's position. The university's president chimed in: “I am profoundly disappointed that the letter is replete with factual errors.” In response, the Department of Education re-did its report to soften it. Read the letters here and the Washington Post's story here.

Everything that Governor Terence McAuliffe and U-Va. President Teresa Sullivan complain about with the respect to the way U-Va. was treated are things that presumptively innocent young men across America are forced to endure every single day of the week when they are accused of sex offenses on campus--and hardly any lawmakers, in Virginia or anywhere else, give a damn about them. Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.and a few others are the exceptions, and they are forced to put up with the wrath of the anti-due process mob in the sexual grievance lobby.

When U-Va.'s president banned fraternities on campus, did that comport with those fundamental notions of fairness you're talking about, Governor? Why the hell does U-Va. deserve fair processes while college men don't?

Young men of Virginia need to sit up and demand that their elected officials care as much them as those elected officials care about the University of Virginia.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

The founder of SurvJustice bemoaned society's purported tolerance of sexual assault: "We actively avoid serious prosecutions and hearings on this issue," she complained. But, in fact, it's not society that advocates avoiding serious prosecutions of sexual violence, it's the sexual grievance industry. SurvJustice itself recently opposed the Safe Campus Act, which would require that college sexual assault claims be reported to police before the school can take action on its own.

By opposing the Safe Campus Act, the sexual grievance industry makes clear that it doesn't care a whit about fair processes for the accused, it only cares about propping up a broken system where every women who cries rape is automatically believed. One prominent opponent of the Safe Campus Act declared that "we are not at a point" to worry about due process for those accused of sexual assault. She announced: "If we are to truly believe in due process for all, we must prioritize the needs of survivors first and foremost." Elura Nanos opposes the Safe Campus Act and explained that young men can protect themselves from false rape claims by . . . wait for it . . . speaking out against predatory behavior. Alexandra Brodsky declared that some who believe college rape cases should be handled by the criminal justice system are practicing "a subtle misogny." In Ohio, student activists think the Safe Campus Act would "protect" the "wrong people."

Worse, when they attempt to persuade by using logic, they only expose the shallowness of their position. Senator Claire McCaskill opposes the Safe Campus Act because it creates this supposed double-standard: young women robbed at gunpoint do not need to involve police to get their assailants expelled whereas, under this Safe Campus Act, police would need to be involved. McCaskill's double-standard is a straw man. She did not, because she cannot, cite even one instance where a college handled armed robbery internally without involving the police. Every serious crime on campus, except for sexual assault, is, in fact, handled by the police and not internally by the college. The Safe Campus Act would do what activists have long advocated but apparently never really meant: force colleges to treat sexual assault as a serious crime.

It's time to for all persons of goodwill to call the extremists on their woefully misguided crusade because they have it exactly backwards: due process was invented to protect the innocent, not the "wrong people," and that's why an accusation should never be tantamount to a finding of guilt. False and wrongful rape claims are a significant problem. See, e.g., here and here. Impartial legal scholars say the current college system is grossly unfair to men accused of sexual assault. A court recently ripped off the scab and revealed an ugly pus--students accused of sexual assault are being treated unjustly. All of us can be concerned about injustice to both the victims of sexual violence and the victims of wrongful accusations of sexual violence without compromising our fidelity to either group--it's not all-or-nothing, it's not a zero sum game. The gender zealots who dominate the public discourse on these issues need to understand that it's not always about them--and their insistence on propping up a system where public confidence has been undermined does no favors to sexual assault victims, much less the the innocents who are wrongly accused.

It's time for the good people of America to stand up and say, "Enough!"

The sexual grievance industry's hostility to the Safe Campus Act--which would insure that students accused of sexual assault are afforded minimal fairness--knows no bounds. Readers will recall the Washington Post reported that one prominent opponent of the Act declared that "we are not at a point" to worry about due process for those accused of sexual assault. She announced: "If we are to truly believe in due process for all, we must prioritize the needs of survivors first and foremost."

But leading the opposition to the Safe Campus Act Act are two Democratic female United States Senators, Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), as explained in this article appearing in Slate. (Note that Slate calls the Safe Campus Act the "so-called Safe Campus Act." Do you think Slate ever called The Affordable Care Act the "so-called Affordable Care Act"? Somehow I doubt it.)

Sen. Claire McCaskill is no friend to wrongly accused college men. Before we get to the latest evidence of this, let's briefly review. When she was asked about the DOJ report showing that it's not 1 in 5 college women who are sexually assaulted, but more like 1 in 52 or 53, she said it was "irritating that anybody would be distracted" by that statistic. (At least Sen. Gillibrand had the sense to remove the false 1-in-5 stat from her website after the DOJ's report--but Gillibrand is also astonishingly hostile to the presumptively innocent.) McCaskill also forwarded an extensive survey about sexual assault to 350 colleges and universities. The survey referred to sexual assault accusers as "victims" and to the persons merely accused as "offenders." The survey further implied that it is improper to insure that students accused of serious sexual offenses are aware of their rights--that might "discourage victims from disclosing and reporting assaults at some schools." Then, after McCaskill got the responses from the schools, her report about it ignored male victims en masse and suggested that college kangaroo courts that fail to provide accused students even the most basic rights are fair enough for them.

McCaskill is at it again. She's quoted in Slateas opposing the Safe Campus Act:

“You have this anomaly they’re proposing, where a young woman could be robbed at gunpoint and decide that she wanted to just try to get that person off campus and go to her university and they could take action under Title IX,” McCaskill said today. “But if she was raped, she would not be able to do that unless she made the decision to go to the police.”

Excuse me while I bang my head against the wall.

I challenge McCaskill and her staff to cite even one instance--just one--where an armed robbery occurred on campus and the alleged victim and the college did not involve the police.

This kind of argumentation is grotesquely dishonest, and the truth underscores why the Safe Campus Act needs to be passed: serious crimes--like armed robbery--are, in fact, always handled by the police and not internally by the college. If sexual assault is the serious crime that McCaskill and her ilk insist it is, then it, too, needs to be handled by the police. End of discussion. Anyone not drunk on gender politics knows that. In fact, 90 percent of likely voters agree with us: allegations of serious sexual wrongdoing on campus need to be handled by the police, not the college.

McCaskill's demagoguery has no place at the adult table when a serious issue is being discussed. It is hateful to our sons because it deprives them of fair hearings, and it does no favors to our daughters because it assumes they need fainting couches and are too fragile to respond to serious criminality the way other crime victims do.

I suggest everyone write to McCaskill and ask her to cite all the instances (or even one) when colleges have handled armed robbery in-house without involving the police: http://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/contact